Sailor Goes From Beat Cop to 'Doc'

Sailor Goes From Beat Cop to 'Doc'
Dec 18, 2012
American Forces Press Service
by Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Robert L. Fisher III

USS NEW YORK, Atlantic Ocean – From a police officer in Kingston, Jamaica, to a barber in New York City, Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Steve A. Barnes, 35, has held many jobs throughout his life.

But his time as a corpsman with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, he said, has tested him much differently than any of his previous experiences.

Barnes is a corpsman with Company A, Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 24th MEU, and has been deployed since March. Since completing field medicine school and jumping into the Fleet Marine Corps, Barnes said he has had rare opportunities to practice. That changed quickly April 11, 2012, when an MV-22B Osprey crashed in Morocco, killing two Marines and seriously injuring two others.

“My guys were 200 yards away from the crash,” Barnes recalled. “We have two bags for field medicine; I remember I grabbed my big bag and just started running. After I got there, it was chaos. We set up a receiving area and they pulled the first guy out, he was in pain. That’s when this deployment became real for me.”
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